One Stone
by ImOrca
Summary: Merle Dixon is a problem-solver...a cunning, devious problem-solver. T for swears.


**Notes: The writers are really trying to make Merle into my favorite character. I figure that Merle never calls anyone their real name in his internal dialogue.**

****Edited a few typing errors 3/23/13.**

**Disclaimer: Copyright for **_**The Walking Dead**_** belongs to AMC, et al. My writing belongs to me, as do errors.**

**Title: "One Stone"**

Merle was tired of waiting around. He was damn tired of having his opinion on all matters Woodbury ignored. And he was absolutely fucking sick of the certainty of death that had descended on the group since Prick had returned. He scratched at his ear with the blade on his right arm a bit absently. He had come to like the immediate discomfort that observers got whenever they saw him make the move, and if he was honest with himself, he liked the little thrill it gave him that maybe this time he'd slip _just a little_ and do some real damage to whatever part of his body had the gall to itch. Life was worth little if you couldn't feel the danger anymore. Better to feel it and fall prey to it once in a while than to forget it. He found it hard to believe that these people were having to learn that lesson again. With the rotting carcasses climbing up their asses, how had they ever forgotten enough to need a refresher?

Prick had made it very clear that the quick and easy assassination plan would earn Merle a bullet to the brain pan. Back in Atlanta, Merle wouldn't have believed him, both because Merle himself was still so high he wouldn't have felt any danger, and because Prick still had a vestige of the "officer" ethic in Officer Friendly. But now? Well, the man's eyes hadn't focused on anything since Merle had arrived. Even when he shot a weapon it seemed to be mostly muscle memory fueling the accuracy of Prick's aim. When he held that little elf in his arms, he didn't see her. When that tough little son of a bitch boy of his followed him around it was the son and not the father with the sharp, guarding eye. Not only did the man's eyes stay permanently out of focus, he broke out in the sweats at strange times, and his breathing sounded wrong, like he'd been running hard even when he was at rest. In Merle's infantry unit Prick would have been out to see the shrink long before and had all his deadly weapons confiscated. For good reason, because Merle would lay wager that Prick was going to die in the coming battle and was set to take one or more of this dysfunctional family out before they even entered the field.

But, nobody had said anything at all about a little scouting expedition to see exactly who was scouting on them. And nobody had said that the world out there wasn't dangerous to scouts who got a little too comfortable in their armored vehicle with their binoculars resting in one place for too long. And nobody had said that it wouldn't be deeply useful if, say, those same careless watchers went missing from their posts with only the evidence of walker feeding and fresh blood left behind. Quick, quiet, with a built in disposal mechanism. Nothing Merle liked better. It would take at least a day for that back-stabbing Dick-tater to realize his men weren't reporting back in, and if it was a precision strike and not a pattern, they could use the opening to tear up some serious shit.

Merle pushed off the wall where he'd been standing watch. He huffed. Watch? Gazing at geeks was more like it. Fuck them. If the scouts wanted to bounce a bullet off his ass, let them. The walkers were piling up at the gates and it was time to thin the herd, maybe even make it to the skeleton of the Trojan Horse out there and turn the bread truck into a temporary gate while they took back their space to give them more room to breathe. Merle didn't much care. If he didn't work off some of this tension he was going to do something really stupid, like make Prick's gun go off. He wasn't ready for that just yet.

Engaging the safety on his rifle he set it aside next to the door, and made his way toward the fence. If he was going to pile up bodies, he didn't want them clogging the access road. He strode right up near the fence and ran his blade against the railing. He let the dead see him, hear him, and get a good ripe whiff of his juicy, living flesh and lead them down toward the far tower where the governor's man still hung from the railing. They really should pull him down. Well, Merle thought, if this went right he might just get to that.

The corpses turned toward him in their strange off-angled way, and began to shuffle behind him, hissing and plucking at the fence to try to reach through to him. In their eagerness, several of the walkers shore off their own fingers, the decaying slivers of flesh falling through the wire to make soft, sickening splat-sounds on the concrete. As much as Merle hated the lifeless lumps, it struck him as pitiful. He supposed it was their lack of self-preservation that got him. The fuckers ran on instinct, and yet they were deprived the very first instinct that had started human evolution into something more. Merle didn't rightly think it was a mercy to put them down, but it wasn't _not _one either.

Merle had pulled along a good dozen of the walkers in his wake, with another ten or so starting to take notice of the movement of their counterparts. He was well away from the gate, and had partial cover from three sides, and full cover from the fourth. If they hadn't taken a shot at him yet, they'd be hard-pressed to hit him now. With that he pulled back his arm and started a methodical strike and retrieve, building up a pile of the fallen as he continued. The dead behind climbed atop the ones in front as they went down, newcomers slipping in the rotting tissue underfoot. Merle could hear the odd sound of the softened, decayed bones of those already down being crushed by the weight of those clambering up. As the pile rose, so did his targets, and soon he had to take a few steps to the side to draw the line of them back down to ground level and back to easy reach.

With an eye to how well his cover was holding up, Merle dispatched walkers until a second pile had begun to rise. His shoulder was starting to tire. With one last yank of his blade from the eye-socket of what was once a teenaged girl, he stepped back from the fence. He'd need to disperse the rest some so they didn't overwhelm this side of the prison – get them broken up and randomized. He wrangled those immediately in front of him further toward the tower at a slow pace once again, making sure they could keep up and stay interested. Once they were moving well he jogged back to his starting position and picked up the stragglers at the tail end, catching their attention and getting them moving in the opposite direction. Then he withdrew back to his weapon by the door. The jumble of sound and movement had seemed to do the trick, and the group bumped into each other as they groped about for him with their limited senses. Failing to latch onto him again they milled close, then began to spread apart, perhaps seeking him elsewhere.

Moving slowly he rounded the corner of the building to take stock. Probably twenty walkers down, perhaps more. They'd need a fire, but he wasn't worried. He'd do it himself during next watch. Let the farmers' daughters keep the biters at bay while he did some heavy lifting. He had a good idea where one of the scout teams was settled, because that's where he'd have placed them. If the wind kept at its current bearing or even if it shifted just a bit more to the north – which the clouds seemed to say it might – his nasty little pile of burning shit would waft right over their position, effectively blinding them with ash, and more importantly, making them eager to be looking anywhere but into the smoke coming from their target.

Merle smiled. Yes sir, that would be just too bad – all that rotted meat cooking and its stench coating their nostrils and the motes you couldn't quite see but you could fucking well taste pushing even through the closed windows and the vents of your vehicle. That would be awful in this heat. It might make a man cough, his eyes water, his nose run...just might make a man distracted...might make him seek some relief by breaking his watch pattern. It would be mighty unlucky if that poor scout happened to fall prey to a few hungry geeks that just happened to be passing through and caught him unawares. Or, perhaps, a well-placed blade that made him bleed...attracting the full-service, human meat disposal units like the ones who's burning had caused his original discomfort? Wasn't life a bitch sometimes? Merle figured that Prick would take that opening _just fine_.


End file.
